334 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



would simply see the stump, with the burning below the chopping 

 off point. In 1900 I had the opportunity of seeing with my own 

 eyes where such burning had been committed, selected trees, per- 

 haps as fine as any that ever grew, which stood over on the bluff 

 opposite Walker, burned with the aid of a lamp. That is the re- 

 sult of the "dead and down" law. 



How, you ask, was this resolution passed ? Your chairman 

 would reply that the resolution was evidently drawn "to deceive the 

 elect" if possible. 



The real motives for the opening of the reserve were cleverly 

 concealed and solicitude for the poor Indian strongly emphasized. 

 The opposition posing as the Indian's friend and in the same 

 breath urging a return to the Nelson Law, under which the Indians 

 were robbed and demoralized, is as suggestive as paradoxical, but 

 the role assumed, in the absence of those familiar with the history 

 of reserve affairs, served their purpose. 



It had not occurred to the friends of forestry that the legisla- 

 ture could be so blinded as to revoke its action after the law had 

 been tested and found to be a greater success than had even been 

 hoped for by its friends. 



The Indians have received under the Morris Act, more than 

 three times as much for their pine timber as they have ever before 

 received, and conditions on the reserve promise a second forest 

 and are highly gratifying to the Forest Service in Washington. 



Certain promoters of the Drainage League are the opposers of 

 the forest reserve, and I firmly believe they are working under the 

 new name and in a different manner to emasculate the reserve. 



There is no congestion in the northern part of the state that 

 calls for drainage at this time, since we have 11,000,000 acres of 

 land, practically unsettled, that is arable. The total area of New 

 York is 12,000,000, and we have 11,000,000 acres exclusive of our 

 swamp land in the Chippewa reserve. 



These great philanthropists advocate the use of the Indian 

 fund, which under the Morris Act has become an asset as against 

 a deficit under the old Nelson Law. The Indian fund under the old 

 law offered a similar proposition to that of the frog in the well, viz., 

 If a frog jump up one foot each day and fall back two, when 

 will he get out of the well? And yet, these self styled friends of 

 the Indians and opposers of the Morris Act, desire to see the Nelson 

 ■I^w become operative. 

 '^- We trust the Forestry Association will stand for the Morris 



